Rubber Ball
by PeaceHeather
Summary: How was Zuko to find his way, to create a place for himself among people who had no reason to trust him?  It didn't help that the Avatar and his companions frankly bewildered him more often than not. COMPLETE 12-6-11
1. Chapter 1  Aang

It was a beautiful day in the canyon sheltering the Western Air Temple; the sun was bright but not too hot, and the air, for once, was absolutely free of haze and so clear that the cliff walls opposite the temple looked close enough to touch. Zuko sat in a bit of ruined balcony just outside the chamber the group had adopted as their main gathering spot, enjoying the magnificent view.

Firebending this morning had gone well, finally; lunch was over, and he was free to relax a little. Apart from the time he and Mai had spent together, leisure time was a pleasure he had seldom allowed himself to indulge in, these past few years. Now, though - well, he didn't have a crew to command, there was no longer a need to pursue the Avatar, and now that he'd left the palace for good, he didn't need to watch his behavior or his back. Not much, anyway.

Granted, he'd brought his meal with him to the balcony, choosing to eat apart from the group rather than endure yet another round of stilted conversation and uncertain, sidelong glances; the others probably thought he was brooding out here, or plotting, in Katara's case. He wasn't, but... sometimes it just got tiring, dealing with the excruciating awkwardness that came with his position as the Av - as Aang's - firebending master.

He might be _in_ the group now, but that didn't mean he was _of_ it. Not yet.

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Zuko had spent enough days and nights fretting over the problem: How was he to find his way, to create a place for himself among people who had no reason to trust him, given everything he'd done up to this point?

It didn't help that the Avatar and his companions, every last one of them, frankly bewildered him more often than not.

There was a case in point right in front of him when he got up and brought his bowl back inside, watching the others as discretely as he could while he moved past them. The Avatar - Aang - he was just... he...

Back when he'd still been chasing the Avatar, Zuko had learned that Aang could fly. Even without his glider, he could blithely step off a cliff, drop thirty feet or more at a time and land as softly as a hummerbee; he could run faster than the wind, sweep foes from his path with a tightly focused tornado, and create gusts that could knock a man through a wall.

And at the moment he was zipping around, quite literally bouncing off the walls, using that technique he called an "air scooter" and whooping and hooting like a crazed owl-loon.

It was just a little difficult to reconcile those two images in his head, sometimes.

Never mind that he was power incarnate, carrying as he did the wisdom and experience of all the thousands of Avatars to come before him. Never mind that his duty was to single-handedly bridge the gap between the mortal world and the realm of spirits. Never mind that he was also, currently, the living embodiment of all the world's hopes for peace.

All of that was Aang-the-Avatar. Aang-the-kid, on the other hand, was bubbly enough to compete with Ty Lee for cheerfulness, had an unholy weakness for fruit custard, and at least half the time he practiced his bending with all the mental focus of his pet lemur-bat.

There were times when Zuko could almost console himself with the knowledge that he'd been defeated (repeatedly) by such a worthy opponent as Aang-the-Avatar. But when he found himself face to face with this -

Somehow, in all his years of study and months of pursuit, Zuko had missed discovering that one good sneeze could launch Aang-the-kid ten feet into the air. And he'd be disappointed if he didn't clear at least fifteen.

It became a little harder to hang onto his pride, knowing that he'd lost battles to - _that_.

Zuko shook his head and kept walking.

* * *

><p>I had intended to make this a one-shot, but the words are fighting back and not letting me write them the way I want. So it looks like you'll get to read a series of vignettes, instead. Hopefully they will all fit together once I'm done.<p>

Reviews are always welcome.


	2. Chapter 2  The Duke

He was just finishing scrubbing out his dishes with a bit of clean sand when he heard two sets of footsteps behind him, and looked up. One belonged to the earthbender girl, Toph. The other belonged to the youngest member of their group - Zuko had no idea what his name was, he insisted on being called The Duke - who was pattering along in uneven bursts, chasing an odd little toy he'd picked up somewhere.

But then, everything about The Duke was little and odd.

The Duke claimed he was ten, but was sized more like an eight-year-old and Zuko wouldn't have been surprised to learn he was only seven. Not only did Zuko have no idea what his real name was, it seemed the little boy himself might have forgotten it. And the toy was a misshapen rubber ball, something rarely seen within the Fire Nation and virtually unheard of outside it. Zuko had no idea where he would've gotten his hands on such an exotic plaything, much less how he could have held onto it through all his travels.

As for what he was doing at the Temple... Zuko's tentative questions had revealed that he and the other two Earth Kingdom boys had participated, actively, in the invasion attempt, right alongside the other forces. Zuko could sort of see it for Haru - he was old enough - and possibly even for Teo, who although crippled could have served as support staff, and was at least in the same age range as Aang and the Water Tribe siblings. It also turned out that they'd both come to the battle alongside their fathers.

But the Duke? What use could he possibly have been in a fight like that - and even if he were useful, who could have justified bringing him onto a battlefield in the first place? (_How could you possibly justify a fight with a child?_, his memory demanded.)

When Zuko pushed, The Duke had hotly proclaimed that he was a freedom fighter and Jet always said he didn't have to answer to any Fire Nation jerk, so there, then kicked him in the shin and run off. Having met Jet, Zuko supposed he couldn't put it past him to have allowed a child to join his gang of thieves and bandits.

(Actually, the child had said quite a bit more than that, including a couple of curses he had to have picked up from a portside dockworker somewhere.)

The Duke's sudden fury had hurt Zuko a little; not because of the bruise he'd gained but because the little guy had alternately hidden from and followed after Zuko like a timid little ghost for days when he'd first arrived, obviously wavering between fear and curiosity now that he had a real live firebender in front of him who wasn't trying to burn and destroy everything in sight. He had actually seemed shocked when, to break the ice, Zuko asked him where the latrines were, as if he couldn't quite believe Zuko was really, truly, human enough to need to do things like eat, sleep, or pee. It was almost cute.

The Duke had settled down again before too much time passed, but it was clear that his trust was a fragile thing, and Zuko was saddened to see just how easily he could be frightened into a defensive stance. Being with the Avatar - and especially with the motherly Katara to look after him - was probably the best thing to ever happen to him.

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><p>You know, I keep trying to turn this into a cutefunny/silly story, and instead I'm getting introspective stuff that borders on angst. It's _frustrating._


	3. Chapter 3 Toph

And then there was Toph.

Zuko couldn't quite decide if she was the one of their group who made the most sense to him or the least - mainly because he was entirely accustomed to being around women (all right, girls) who were both frighteningly competent and had it in for him in one way or another. Toph was definitely one of them.

On the one hand, Toph bragged that she was the greatest earthbender in the world, and after she backed that with a little demonstration of metal-bending, he was inclined to agree. Likewise she had promised payback for the burns he had accidentally inflicted on her (he was half asleep, they'd rejected him, if anyone was likely to show up at his camp it would be one of Azula's minions), and had a tendency to _grin_ at him in a way that looked positively bloodthirsty.

The fact that he was actually used to being looked at like that by the girls in his life was either tragic, or deeply disturbing; take your pick.

On the other hand, though... yes, he'd opened his door one morning and walked straight into a wall that hadn't been there the night before. Yes, one night he'd been dumped out of his bed when it suddenly flipped over to the sound of her cackling in the hallway. Yes, she'd declared that those were only two bits of payback and she had eight more singed toes for him to make up for. But for all that she clearly loved to mess with him, she'd never actually endangered his life.

Not even once. It was... weird.

And when she wasn't playing pranks on him, she was by far the most welcoming of their little band, apart from Aang. She had no problem dragging him toward the fire at mealtimes, plopping down next to him (plopping her feet in his lap and trusting him to yank his meal out of the way in time), or striking up a conversation that may or may not make any sense to him whatsoever. She seemed determined to draw him out into the open, whether he liked it or not.

"Hey. Sunbeam. Do they have ostrich horses in the Fire Nation?"

Kind of like now.

"Not really," he replied, setting his clean bowl with the others. "Why?"

"Because I want to know what the rich people ride around on all day. In the Earth Kingdom it's covered wagons, pulled by ostrich horses."

"Oh." This was completely random, but he'd go along with it. "Well, some people use wagons here, too, I guess... but the most important classes - the nobility, high-level ministers and generals, people like that - they usually use palanquins."

"Are they fluffy?"

"What?" He looked down at her, confused.

"Palanquins. What do they look like?"

"Well, uh, they're just chairs, mostly. On a platform. A lot of them have posts on the corners to hold up a roof and maybe some curtains... and they have poles along the sides for the palanquin bearers..."

"You mean it's not even an animal at all?" She stood there with her hands on her hips.

"No," said Zuko. "Why are you asking me this stuff?"

Toph raised herself up on a pillar of earth, then flung herself through the air and onto his back. "Because I've decided you're going to be my personal palanquin to make up for the rest of the damage you did to my feet," she declared. "Now, get moving."

"Oof," said Zuko. When he got his footing back, he looked over his shoulder at her. Sure enough, she had that _grin_ on her face again. "Where are we going?"

"Eh, who cares?" she replied, digging her heels into his ribs. Ouch. He was pretty sure she had calluses tougher than some of his boot soles. "Yip yip, or whatever. I just wish palanquins really were some kind of animal."

Zuko closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head in resignation, and started walking. "I'm warning you, if you stick your feet in my face, I'll dump you in the fountain," he said.

"You'd pay for that," said Toph. "I know," said Zuko.

He could hear The Duke giggling behind him as he marched up the stairs toward the closest bridge. "So why did you ask if palanquins were fluffy?" he asked. "I mean... no offense, but you don't really strike me as a... you know... a ribbons-and-bunnycorns kind of person."

"Oh, I'm not," she said cheerfully. "I just wanted to be able to call _you_ Fluffy." She took her hands off his shoulders and shoved them into his hair. "Hey, maybe I will anyway!"

"Ack," said Zuko.

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><p>To those who have reviewed so far, my thanks.<p>

Also: dialogue, yay! I'm finally getting closer to the one snippet of conversation that inspired this whole piece in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4 Supplies

When he had fled the palace, Zuko knew he would need to tread carefully while he gained both Aang's trust and that of his teachers, so he'd done his best to put a sketchy plan into place. The original idea was that he'd follow the Avatar's bison, setting up his camp close enough to theirs that he could reach them easily, but far enough away so as not to seem deliberately threatening. Then he'd approach them and try to persuade them to let him join.

...and knowing how terrible he was with words (or maybe it was just his skills with people in general, he wondered), he'd brought supplies with him that he thought their little group would need.

Yes, okay, he'd planned to bribe them... a little... if you wanted to look at it that way. Or you could say that he kind of owed them something nice to make up for everything he'd put them through in the past year. Certainly gift-giving as a means of currying favor was a venerable tradition within the Fire Nation. Effective, too. Zuko figured it couldn't hurt to try, in any case.

It turned out that the idea was a good one. The group was more than happy to accept his supplies, once they'd accepted him, just as Zuko had hoped for, and he was pleased that one of his plans had finally come through for him. There were only two problems that Zuko couldn't have foreseen.

The first had to do with numbers. Zuko had expected the Avatar and three companions, and packed accordingly. He was more than a little surprised to see twice that many sheltering in the temple.

The second was that, of all the things he'd thought to bring - useful things, easy to carry, things he remembered needing or wishing for during his own time on the run in the Earth Kingdom - the item that caused the most stir was one he hadn't _really_ brought on his own.

He'd wracked his brain trying to make sure the things he smuggled out of the palace would be worthwhile, too. There were spare blankets, a little faded but still whole and warm, perfect for anyone who wasn't an aristocratic snob. He'd managed to sneak small sacks of rice and other grains out of the kitchen, along with a large pouch of dried figs. An incognito trip to the docks got him fishing line and hooks (which were surprisingly expensive but probably worth it; he assumed the Water Tribe contingent would know what to do with them, even if he didn't). He'd found a sewing kit, knives and whetstones, and plenty of bandages and medicinal herbs, including the burn ointments they would inevitably need. The spice packets might have been frivolous, but he knew that the peasantry generally couldn't afford them and considered a little seasoning to be a rare treat; he thought perhaps they'd make a nice gesture. The jars of tea had been meant for his uncle once Zuko freed him from prison, but since that part of the plan fell through he figured he might as well offer them to the Avatar's group too.

And after all that effort, they got the most excited over the tiny maintenance kit that was considered standard equipment on every war balloon. That boy in the chair-cart, Teo, had been thrilled, and immediately began to list all the things he intended to do with the little wrench set, spare bolts, cables and hinges, and collection of fabric patches and patch-glue. Zuko strengthtened his suspicions that the boy must have served as some kind of support staff for the invasion.

Meanwhile Sokka - who Zuko had only ever thought of as a half-trained fisherman and seal-hunter turned warrior - had utterly abandoned all pretense of dignity when, either oblivious to his audience or too happy to care, the young man started clapping his hands and jumping up and down in glee; he even _squealed_.

Like a little girl.

Repeatedly.

Ty Lee couldn't have put forth a better display of such complete and total delight. Zuko half-expected him to start doing backflips and babbling about auras, to be honest.

As it was, he could only stand at a safe distance, blinking at "The Time-Honored Traditional Water Tribe Celebration Festival Happydance" (as Sokka later called it in a pathetic attempt to defend his pride) and ruefully admit to himself that he hadn't seen _that_ coming.

* * *

><p>Hee hee hee.<p>

Sorry for the delay in updates. I was stalling because I couldn't decide whether to focus on Teo next, or Sokka, and had all these great paragraphs about _stuff_; then I got tired of dithering and just went with the stuff instead, rather than leave you all hanging.


	5. Chapter 5 Workshop

Zuko, with Toph on his back, carefully crossed the elevated walkway that bridged the gap between "their" pagoda and the next one over. This one hung suspended in almost constant shadow, deep beneath the overhang that made up the top of the cliff wall on this side of the canyon. While it was unsuitable as a living space - it had no ready source of water, and with no sunlight to warm the stone by day, it was much too cold at night to sleep comfortably - it made an excellent storage area for all their supplies.

It was here that they'd hidden Zuko's war balloon after retrieving it from the forest above, and it was here that Teo, Sokka, and Haru had set up a workshop of sorts, where they spent time repairing gear, designing projects of one kind or another, and generally puttering around in industrious contentment with the tools he'd inadvertently brought along.

Haru mainly seemed to be there to assist, whether it was as a spare pair of hands or to provide earthbending muscle. Why lament the lack of a hoist for the heavy stuff, or try and rig a pulley-and-winch system, when he could just _shove_ and get things wherever you needed them?

Originally Zuko assumed that the boy Teo did most of the actual designing, so he'd been surprised once again to see Sokka in the thick of things, too - occasionally assisting Teo, but mostly advising, arguing, and brainstorming ideas with him as an equal colleague, fully as comfortable with a wrench in his hand as he was with his beloved Boomerang. Both Teo and Sokka focused intently on their work, exhibiting a degree of calm concentration that reminded Zuko of his very best days at bending practice.

This went completely at odds with Zuko's impression of Sokka as either the seal-hunter or the Water Tribe Happy Dance Master, but never mind.

Right now they were fussing over a contraption that seemed to be built mostly out of scavenged tent fabric stretched over a frame of thin wooden struts, all resting on a workbench Haru had earthbent from the pagoda floor. Propped nearby was an ancient staff-glider they'd found elsewhere on the temple grounds, like the one Zuko remembered Aang once carried. This one was useless, the fabric long since rotted away and the wood full of a century's worth of holes from burrowing insects, but the overall shape was intact. Teo seemed to be using the thing as a template to build... um... something.

"What _is_ that?" Zuko murmured.

"You're asking me?" Toph sighed, her breath gusting past his ear. "If you want me to answer that, Fluffy, you're gonna have to put me down so my feet can see."

He let go of her legs and bent his knees for her, and Toph slid down his back. She tapped her toes on the stone a couple times, tilted her head as if listening for a moment, and then twisted her mouth in distaste. "Oh, _that_," she said, shaking her head. "I can't _believe_ they decided to go through with it. Nutjobs."

"So, are you going to tell me what it is?" Zuko asked. He couldn't help but be even more curious now; it was really saying something, if you thought about it, for Toph of all people to say you were doing something crazy.

"Nah," she said. "It's pretty much done from what I can tell, though, so if you really want to find out, stick around. They'll probably have all the sections put together here in a few minutes."

"What about you?"

Toph shrugged. "I'm going to go back and chuck some rocks at Aang, he's due for more earthbending." She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand, and headed back to the bridge, tossing a "thanks for the ride, Prince Palanquin" over her shoulder as she went. Zuko suppressed a shudder at the new nickname and turned back to observe.

It turned out she was right, on all counts:

One, the three young men bolted something like legs onto the larger frame while he watched, and Sokka cheered before they carefully flipped the whole thing over so that it stood by itself on the workbench, looking even more like a drastically oversized version of the top half of Aang's old glider. They couldn't have taken more than five minutes from the time he arrived.

Two, Teo spun so that his back was to the table and the other two walked the contraption forward and began to fasten it to to the frame of his wheeled chair. Zuko couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, either, especially when, after double-checking the joins, Teo handed off his wrench and pulled a pair of goggles from a pocket.

Three, Teo tested his chair's brakes a couple times before nodding to his companions. Zuko's jaw dropped as Sokka and Haru scrambled to either side of the chair, put their shoulders into it, and _ran_ - away from the workshop, straight toward the lip of the balcony and the empty air beyond.

Teo vanished over the edge, and Zuko cried out in horrified shock... and then the boy reappeared, rising in a steady spiral and sailing off down the canyon. His shout was drowned out by Teo's triumphant laughter, Haru's cheer, and Sokka bellowing, "Happy to be of service, my good man!" in a ridiculously pompous accent.

All this time, Zuko had thought he was the one with the problem whenever they did something that confused him, but he could now see that this was not the case. Aang's friends were far, far beyond "weird"; they were even beyond "bewildering to a degree that hurt his brain".

Teo banked and dove in the sunlight, Sokka and Haru continued to shout encouragement, and as far as Zuko was concerned, "Nutjob" didn't even _begin_ to describe it.

These people were breathtakingly, gloriously _insane_.

* * *

><p>If you go back and watch Western Air Temple, you can see the bridge directly behind Aang when they're all gathered around and discussing how to go about finding a firebending teacher. Yes. I'm that much of a nerd.<p> 


	6. Chapter 6 Teo

Once Zuko realized that the workshop was occupied, he'd originally intended to just stay out of the way, keep his mouth shut and do what he could to avoid yet another round of awkward conversation. He had two reasons for this:

One, Zuko knew that the awkwardness between him and the other members of the group went both ways. It seemed only polite not to interrupt these three at their work, and he was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to concentrate if they were constantly looking over their shoulders at _him_.

Two, Zuko was trying, he really was, to figure out how to fit in among people who managed to confuse him at least twice a day without even trying. His usual strategy was to observe things from a safe distance and save his questions for later. Of course, determining what counted as a "safe distance" was its own challenge, as was figuring out a good time to actually ask the questions he was saving, but never mind.

After seeing the boys shove Teo off the cliff, though (and yes, all right, it was obvious they had the whole thing planned, but _still_), he could no longer hold himself back. The others now seemed to be actively plotting to make him question his own sanity, (or theirs, who could tell?), and those other challenges just didn't seem to mean very much in comparison.

So it ended up that he took the last few stairs down off the bridge and joined Sokka and Haru on the edge of the balcony, watching Teo fly. Zuko lost track of time completely, barely registering it when Haru took off to get some earthbending practice in with Toph, and ended up staying the entire afternoon, listening with half an ear to Sokka's explanations and watching the other boy swoop and glide through the air.

It was a beautiful thing to watch. The Fire Nation's fleet of balloons might be pretty neat, but they were nothing like this. The boy sat suspended beneath a giant wing, soaring in broad spirals like an enormous bird of prey, using natural columns of warm air to rise and coasting downward in long slopes across the canyon before finding another column to lift him up again. No coal engines, no firebending, not even any airbending if he understood Sokka correctly - just flight in its purest form. Zuko was mesmerized.

Zuko wasn't quite sure he would ever want to try it himself, but he had to admit that it did look like fun. Maybe a little scary, but still, secretly he could almost see himself trying it sometime. Supposedly, Katara actually had.

And apparently the Avatar looked down on this kind of flight as being too tame - at least, that was what Sokka seemed to be saying. If he understood the story right, Teo and his people had relocated to the Northern Air Temple after their homes were destroyed by some natural disaster, discovered old gliders on site, and figured out how to use them. When the Av- when Aang heard rumors of flying men living there, he'd been very disappointed to see that they were "only" gliding, and not actually airbending. Zuko guessed that one would almost have to be an airbender themselves to tell a difference.

Finally, Teo seemed to have had enough for one day, and came swooping in for a landing, leaning on his brakes and skidding his chair to a halt as Zuko stumbled back in astonishment. Looking around he was surprised to see that Sokka had disappeared as well, and he and Teo were the only two left in the workshop.

"Ha-ha ha, that was _great_, you guys- oh," said Teo. "Uhh... hey."

"Hi," said Zuko.

"I guess I thought the others would still be here," said Teo. "You, um. You mind helping me with this?"

And just like that, Zuko was recruited to help remove the giant glider from the other boy's chair-cart. It turned out he was as skilled with a wrench as he was with a hammer, which was to say not at all, and he found himself grimacing at the memory of a barn roof, a sore thumb, and a kid named Li.

At least this time he only poked himself in the forehead. Twice.

Despite his ineptitude, it didn't take long for the two of them to get the wing unbolted and safely upended back onto Teo's workbench, and Zuko found himself pleasantly surprised as they worked. He was... enjoying himself. Most people he'd met who could do something so unique, and do it so well, generally had a hard time resisting the urge to be obnoxious and condescending to the mere mortals around them. Teo simply wasn't like that; he was patient with Zuko's clumsiness, and pretty good at describing what he wanted from Zuko and how he needed to do it.

It was obvious that Teo was something more than just a pilot or engineer, the closest equivalents he could think of in a Fire Nation crew. Teo was also a scholar - a kind of scientist of flying, Zuko supposed, and from the easy confidence with which he spoke and handled his tools, Zuko was sure he was a true expert in his field. But he wasn't rude about it, or even overt in pointing it out. It was just part of who he was.

And once they were finished...

"So, would you mind getting me up these stairs?"

"Uh, sure," said Zuko.

And that was just part of who he was, too. His legs didn't work - but the truth of that was as simple for Teo as saying he was from the Earth Kingdom, or that he needed to wash up for dinner. He didn't apologize for his disability, and as far as Zuko could tell he wasn't ashamed of it. But he didn't get defensive either, or angry, or find ways to call attention to his condition. By contrast, as competent and capable as Toph was, sometimes Zuko found himself wishing she would get over the need to make constant references to her blindness. Teo's legs didn't work, and that was that.

Teo was easier to be around than he would have expected. Zuko appreciated it, and found himself hoping he might one day be able to call the other boy his friend.

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><p>Thank you to my readers for your patience. I needed the Teo chapter to come next, and the words just refused to cooperate. And then once they started behaving I couldn't get them to <em>stop<em>. I almost ended up with some kind of pre-slash Teo/Zuko interaction going on, which was just weird. (Clearly I've been reading too much of Teh Pr0n lately.)

As always, your reviews are appreciated. I already have Katara and Sokka segments in mind (for some reason Haru is just a non-entity in my brain); the only question is whether or not to have yet another segment that mostly involves Teo, first!


	7. Chapter 7 Katara

They were all scrubbing down before dinner, splashing their faces and, in the older boys' cases, trying to scour machine oil out from under their fingernails. The overall buzz around the fountain was excited – apparently Katara had decided to make use of the spices Zuko had brought, albeit not before glowering about bribes and secretly poisoning them all, and everyone was looking forward to a meal seasoned with something other than salt and locally harvested lemon grass.

Katara was simply… difficult. He didn't expect to be able to win with her, not after his horrible mistake in the caverns beneath Ba Sing Se, but he had to admit he was getting tired of constantly losing in their every conversation. It was probably a good thing he'd broken ties with his father, it was like he was born with an inability to think before opening his mouth (_you have the scar to prove it_, he heard Zhao saying). The dumbest things just spilled out whenever he tried to say anything, and the friendlier he was trying to be the worse they got. If that hideous war meeting three years ago wasn't example enough, Zuko was pretty sure life at court would have gotten him killed within a month if he'd stayed.

Death by faux pas; what a way to go.

Dinner was delicious, though. Sokka, proving his skills as a huntsman of the Water Tribe, had brought down a young boar-cupine, and the smell of it roasting was enough to make everyone hungry for seconds and thirds. And fourths, if you were Sokka himself. Katara had a deft touch with the seasonings, sticking with a simple blend accented with Black Mountain chiles. Sokka kept complaining it was too spicy, but Zuko noticed he never actually turned down the offer of another helping.

"So," Teo said, "it's probably been awhile since you got to eat anything this good, huh?"

Zuko finished licking the juice off his fingers before answering, "Yeah, a little bit." Raised his entire life to impeccable manners, he sometimes surprised himself by how easily he could cast them aside and act like a peasant, especially when he was hungry. He supposed that was just one more proof that he wasn't cut out for life in the palace anymore, if he ever had been in the first place. "Actually, this is the best thing I've had in ages."

And was it just him, or did that come out like he was fishing for pity? Poor exiled Zuko, forced to eat with the commoners?

"You don't have to sound so surprised," sniped Katara.

Okay, maybe it didn't.

"I'm not," Zuko began, but Katara just cut him off.

"I mean, I realize it probably isn't pheasant tongues served in dragon-heart wine, or whatever _royalty_ gets to eat," she said, "but even we Water Tribe _barbarians_ know how to make something taste good. We do eat more than just whale fat, you know."

Zuko sighed. "Okay, first of all, pheasant tongues only get eaten in children's tales, second, dragon-heart wine is good for showing off your wealth but lousy for drinking because the wine-making process ruins all the flavor of the fruit, and third, I doubt anyone in the palace has ever gotten the chance to try boarcupine with Black Mountain chiles. And if they ever did –"

"Black what?"

"What?"

"The peppers. What did you call them?"

"They're Black Mountain chiles. They only grow in this one tiny little island in the very southern tip of the Fire Nation. They're so rare most cooks don't have any idea of how to use them well, they just stuff them into a dish until the heat is overpowering. Another status thing, I guess."

Katara had the oddest look on her face; Zuko couldn't tell if she was confused, annoyed, or pleased. "Shows how much they know, then," she said, "'cause these are nothing but ice peppers, and they're not rare at all."

"_What?_"

"Well, they're not! Ice peppers grow wild all over the Southern Continent; we take the better-flavored varieties and grow them in our homes to eat during the sunless part of the winter. They keep sun-sickness away."

Teo piped up, "Maybe they're only rare in the Fire Nation because it's too far north for them to grow well."

Zuko couldn't help but feel stunned. His exotic bribe – er, gift – was basically a weed in the Southern Water Tribe? At a loss, he could only say, "There are different flavors?"

"Oh yeah," said Sokka. "There's these sweet ones that are really great dried, you can eat them like candy, and then there are these teeny little purple ones that are _vicious_, one of 'em is enough to heat up a whole _festival pot_ of stew." He licked his chopsticks and added, "That's like, the size of three or four regular pots like the one we're using."

"You think they're vicious," snickered his sister. "You're just a big wimp when it comes to the hot stuff."

"Ooh!" said Aang. "Zuko, what do you think? When the war is over the Water Tribe could maybe use ice peppers to trade with the Fire Nation!"

"You'd make a killing," he replied fervently. "Better yet, send cooks who know what to do with them and they'd be the highest paid chefs in the country, as long as they keep their recipes secret."

He was pretty sure he understood the look on Katara's face now. She was all three: confused that he had any idea what her people's vegetables even tasted like, annoyed that she and he had something in common, and completely smug that her people had something that the Fire Nation not only didn't have, but probably never could.

Oddly enough, Zuko found that she looked kinda cute like that. Which in itself was enough to put the same expression on his face, once he realized what he was thinking.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks to all for your kind reviews, and your patience while I dealt with an imploding hard drive and a round of writer's apathyblock (coupled with a sudden obsession for Buffy fics, sorry). I expect this to be the next to last chapter of the story, since as I said Haru is kind of a non-entity in my head and I just can't come up with anything to say about him.**

**Cheers!**


	8. Chapter 8 Sokka

Dinner was over and everyone was relaxing around the fire; even Zuko, for a change. He'd had a good day, if bewildering, and kind of wanted to spend the time observing the little group some more, trying to figure out how they thought. They were bewildering and confusing, but as of his self-imposed exile, they were the only family he had. Even if they did give him headaches.

Come to think of it, that wasn't so bad, considering the kinds of pain Azula was capable of giving him, and had, often.

Aang and Katara were chatting over the wash basin as they cleaned up dinner. Teo was scribbling notes into a journal he kept – earlier in the day he'd explained that it was mostly observations of scientific phenomena, whatever that meant. The Duke was playing with his lopsided rubber ball while Haru laughed and Toph gritted her teeth and clutched at her hair in irritation.

And then there was Sokka.

Sokka was polishing a sword, and glowering at the fire. His mind was worrying at some problem or other; every now and again Zuko would see his lips twitch or his eyebrows lower into a scowl, or a minute shake of his head as if he were arguing with himself.

All this from the same person who squealed like a girl over his new tool set, ate like an ostrich horse while whining about the spices, snored like a swamp cat-gator and woke up from dreams shouting about how Momo was in league with the Fire Lord and out to rule the world by destroying their supply of lychee nuts.

On the other hand, this was also the lone non-bender in a group whose core consisted of the _Avatar_, by definition the most powerful bender in the world, and his teachers, whom Zuko knew from painful experience to be terrifyingly strong in their own right. And he not only held his own in their group, he was insane enough to take took them on in sparring practices and _sometimes he even beat them_. If the stories were to be believed, this lunatic was the mind behind the invasion of the Fire Nation capital – remarkable in itself not only for its audacity (the first major strike to reach Fire Nation shores in over twenty years will attract a certain notoriety), but for how incredibly close it came to succeeding.

If the rest of the group were strange, Sokka was incomprehensible.

"Zuko."

…and now he was focusing his glowering insanity over _here_. Zuko raised his eyebrows, and when Sokka gave a little head twitch, _c'mere_, he went across and sat down next to the other boy.

"Yeah?"

Just like that, the brooding scowl vanished and Sokka smiled easily at him. "When you're done jerk-bending tomorrow, ya wanna spar?"

Okay, that was random.

Zuko looked at the sword Sokka was honing before replying. The blade was clearly something special, something the likes of which Zuko had never seen before.

"Uh, sure, I guess," he replied. "If you don't mind my asking… what kind of blade is that?"

"It's a _sword_, doofus," smirked Sokka. "I know you've seen them before."

Zuko rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant," he said. "I meant, it mostly looks like a Piandao, but I don't understand why anyone would stain the blade black like that." Or why anyone would be dumb enough to carry around a sword that looked that similar to a real Piandao creation, but he bit his tongue on that question.

"Ohhhh," said Sokka. "Well, first of all, it doesn't look like a Piandao, it _is_ a Piandao. Which I helped forge. Second, it isn't stained, the metal is black naturally. You remember that meteor shower a little while back, just before the eclipse?"

"I remember," Zuko began – "wait. Are you telling me you used a fallen meteor? To forge a sword? With Master Piandao?" Sokka just grinned and nodded. "_The_ Master Piandao? Most famous swordsman and sword maker in Fire Nation history?"

"Yup."

"Seriously."

"Yup!"

When Zuko could breathe again, he said, "Yes, I'll spar with you." _This should be… something…_ he thought.

"Cool," he replied. "Just meet me here after you're done with Aang, I found a spot a couple days ago that should be perfect for gettin' busy without cutting anyone else's head off."

"Uh, sure," said Zuko.

Once Sokka had taken himself off to bed, Toph came over and flopped herself down next to Zuko. "You're all bent out of shape about something," she said.

"Sokka," said Zuko. He thought for a moment, trying to come up with something else, but couldn't. "He – Sokka."

Toph grinned. "Yeah, I know," she said, scrunching the rock floor between her fingers. "Lot of people react that way to him until they get used to him. I think he – no, I _know_ – he likes being underestimated. He's learned to use the way people think of him, and he always – always – comes out on top when he does. He's pretty amazing."

Something in Toph's tone caught Zuko's attention. He looked at her, and sure enough, she was hiding a blush under those unruly bangs. Zuko smiled, but decided it wasn't his place to say anything. Besides, if he did pick on her she'd just find another way to get even with him, and he wasn't really looking forward to more of her style of payback.

Instead he said, "I don't think it counts as underestimating him… I don't think I can. He's too hard to get a handle on. I can't read him well enough to be able to underestimate him. Every time I think I've figured him out…" He shrugged helplessly.

"Ah," she said, "that part's easy."

"It is?"

"Sure," said Toph. "You know that toy that The Duke likes so much? Thing drives me crazy. What's it called?"

"It's a rubber ball," said Zuko.

"Okay, that," said Toph. "Sokka's like that rubber ball."

Zuko blinked. "What, you mean lopsided and exotic?" He couldn't help himself.

Toph snickered. "Not quite what I had in mind," she said. "More like… the reason it drives me nuts when The Duke bounces it around is because the shape is so weird, I have no idea where it's going to end up. I mean, sometimes the thing will bounce backwards, have you seen it?"

"Yeah," said Zuko. He'd seen The Duke bounce it for Momo to chase while Aang laughed himself silly. He'd also seen Aang chasing after it himself, but never mind.

"Sokka's a lot like that," said Toph. "He bounces around a lot, and doesn't always make sense to people. He's unpredictable, even to us. But the thing is, if you pick that ball up and throw it at a target, the shape doesn't matter. If your aim is good, you can really paste somebody with it." She grinned, evilly.  
>"Stings, too."<p>

"Okay," said Zuko, "how is Sokka like that?"

"Easy," she answered. "When Sokka doesn't have a single project to work on, he's like the bouncing rubber ball. When he has something to give him focus – like the invasion, just for one example – he's more like the thrown ball. Pow! Nobody sees him coming until he's already struck."

Zuko leaned back on his elbows. "Huh. That… makes a lot of sense."

"I heard you guys talk about sparring tomorrow," she nodded. "Afterwards, you should ask him how long he studied under Master Piandao."

"So he really did meet the master? He wasn't just messing with me?"

"He really did," said Toph. "You ask him, and then go see Katara to have her fix your jaw, after you pick it up off the ground."

"I don't get it," said Zuko.

"Thrown ball," said Toph. "He decided he needed a master. He found one. Pow." She grinned again. "I'm not sure even Piandao saw him coming until after he'd already gotten smacked in the forehead."

Zuko lay awake for awhile after everyone else was asleep, thinking about Toph's explanation.

Rubber ball.

He decided it fit them all. He decided he liked it.


End file.
